Lessons of the Great Patriotic War: combating subversion and terrorism in operations and engagements.

Our country marked 60 years of the Great Victory not long ago. While we appreciate the heroic deed of our people, defenders of the Fatherland, we involuntarily ask ourselves: Have we learned due lessons of the great war, are we making--wittingly or unwittingly--the same mistakes that were made in the prewar and war years?

The war found one of these authors during its first hours in the border zone. We, Red Army men, at the time were astounded not only at the massive air bombing and tank attacks but also at the enemy's attacks from behind. As we came to learn later, subversives, parachutists and terrorists wearing Red Army uniforms were attacking us from the rear. This aggravated the already difficult situation and frequently caused panic in our ranks.

Today, we seem to have forgotten that something similar may recur in an even more dangerous form. At any rate, the "invisible" enemy is rarely present during tactical training of troops today. Like before the war, commanding officers and their personnel are not being adequately trained in combating it. We, therefore, would like to recount the fierce war on the invisible front that did not stop even for a minute.

In the night of 22 June 1941, German subversives managed to carry out their main mission--they paralyzed command and control of troops in many border zone garrisons. They wreaked havoc with the Soviet landline communications putting the control agencies of the military districts, armies, combined units and units into a very difficult situation. This is how the first day of the war situation was described by Gen. L.I. Sandalov, who was at the time chief of staff of the 4th Army that provided cover for the Brest operational sector where the German Center group of armies was mounting the main attack. "When the first German shells began to rain on us, my first attempt to get into contact with the commanders of divisions and personally instruct them to sound combat alarm was hampered because the telephone communications link was down and I had to send out messengers." (1)

The subversives attacked not only combined-arms headquarters but also the control stations of aviation, artillery and rear services. The Air Force commander of the Western Special Military District reported: "As a result of the activities of German subversives and Polish White Guards, between June 20 and June 21, 1941, all landline communications of the Air Force staff of the Western Special Military District with its regiments were cut off, and every airfield was left to its own devices." (2)

The General Staff of the RKKA found itself in a critical situation in the first hours of the war. G.K. Zhukov, who was chief of the General Staff at that time, wrote: "Before dawn of June 22, landline communications with the troops of all Western border districts were disrupted, and the staffs of the districts and armies could not convey their instructions promptly. The agents and subversive teams that Germans had sent into our territory destroyed landlines, killed liaison officers and attacked commanders placed on the alert. As for radio communications equipment, a considerable proportion of the border district troops had not been provided with it. The staffs of the districts were getting from different sources the most conflicting information of often a provocative nature. The General Staff, for its part, was unable to get from the staffs of the districts and troops truthful information and this, naturally, could not but put the General Staff in a difficult situation at some point in time." (3)

This was a heavy price to pay for the shortsightedness of the Red Army military leaders in their estimates of the enemy shortly before the war. When the German Nazi command was hatching plans of total war against the Soviet Union, it relied not just on the might of its armed forces, surprise attacks by its armored and mechanized troops in conjunction with air strikes, but it was at the same time trying to use subversive and terrorist operations and create the fifth column to spread fear and panic among the population and the military and paralyze transportation.

Germany's political and military leadership had been preparing for attaining these objectives for a long time and with utmost care. First, it developed the strategy and tactics of subversive activities that were closely linked to its military operations. Second, it was setting up the necessary logistic and technical support facilities: it was developing new subversive military equipment, weapons, personal gear and equipment, cover papers, the laboratories were testing new and more powerful types of explosives and more potent poisons. The covert agent intelligence was tasked with pinpointing the crucial targets, plotting hidden approaches to the airfields, rail junctions, river crossings and bridges in order that they could be attacked at the start of hostilities. The USSR's border areas were all but openly photographed from the air. At the same time, the intelligence department of the Wehrmacht (Abwehr) launched large-scale training at specially established schools of subversives, spies and intelligence agents, scouts and propaganda agents who were to operate behind Red Army lines. The agents were trained in the fundamentals of military affairs, the use of weapons, methods of intelligence activities, subversive and terrorist operations and demolitions. The greater proportion of subversive parties included people fluent in Russian. They were provided with the uniforms of policemen, officers and Red Army men. By the start of the invasion of the Soviet territory by the Wehrmacht's army, the Germans had set up 17 sabotage and reconnaissance teams (SRT) and 68 parties, as well the special Brandenburg 800 Division, the Kurfurst Regiment and the Bergmann Battalion. The Abwehr created three special departments in three army groups: North, Center and South, whose mission was to conduct strategic operations on the Eastern Front.

The training of subversives, reconnaissance agents and spies was growing in scale as the war progressed. Between 4,000 and 6,000 people were getting special training at the same time at the Abwehr's 39 special subversion and reconnaissance schools alone. These schools trained two to three batches of trainees a year, thus the total number of subversives trained in Germany's interior was 15,000 a year. Besides, eight schools and Abwehr training camps trained up to 4,700 propagandists who were also tasked with demolition activities. During the war, the Germans were actively recruiting subversives for their schools among the prisoners of war, men of Vlasov's army and the population in the occupied areas. Simultaneously, they were establishing underground spy networks manned by anti-Soviet elements in the country's interior, especially in the Northern Caucasus, Crimea and Volga Region.

The German subversion and terrorism activities tactics was being upgraded in accordance with the changing situation. The most important task was to send the maximum number of subversives into the border zone even before the start of hostilities in order that they could prepare sites for parachute assault forces, pinpoint targets and set up bombing reference points for the start of combat operations, disrupt military communications, set fire to supply depots, forests and peat extraction sites. The saboteur activities in the border district of Taugare in Lithuania alone were responsible for the burning of 400 hectares of forestland and 200 hectares in the Trakai district. (4)

With the start of military operations, teams of saboteurs and spies were inserted across the frontline through infiltration and parachute drops from airplanes over designated objectives or in their vicinity. The element of surprise and speed, superior skills of the subversives, careful concealment, their undetectable penetration to targeted facilities and their immediate destruction were essential.

The "hidden front" during the war was gradually coming into the open and becoming perceptible. The enemy's subversive and terrorist activities were pervading the military structure and becoming an inalienable part of warfare. This compelled the Soviet military and political leaders to take urgent measures. The war was in its third day, 24 June 1941, when the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR passed a resolution establishing hunter battalions in the area adjacent to the front to destroy German sabotage and intelligence collection parties and protect installations. NKVD agencies were tasked with combating saboteurs. Placed under their operational command they had the border troops and units that guarded the especially important industrial enterprises, rail facilities and armed prisoner escort units that happened to be in the combat zone.

By the end of July 1941, they formed 1,755 hunter battalions. Besides, patrol and hunter teams were being formed in built-up areas on the initiative of the local organs of the party and administrations. The best-trained in combating saboteurs were the border units. Service instructions of the border troops subunits that guarded the rear services of the Western Front (July 1941) said: "The protection of the lines of supply and the performance of missions assigned by the government to the border troops guarding the rear services of the front shall be organized with regard to the border protection service, for which anti-sabotage detachments should be organized." (5)

There were many instances where border guards and NKVD troops, in cooperation with local patrol and hunter groups, were successfully eliminating saboteurs. But those were only isolated instances. The disorderly retreat of Red Army troops early in the war permitted saboteurs to gain unobstructed access to the lines of communications and force dispositions where they committed acts of subversion. The situation grew even worse because all NKVD units guarding the fronts' rear services, in the second half of July 1941, were committed to action against the enemy. This resulted in a greater number of acts of subversion in the rear areas, the signaling agents became more active, and the number of acts aimed to create disorder and chaos on the roads spiraled.

Those were the most critical days of the war. The commanders of fronts and armies had to take resolute measures to protect the areas behind the lines. The situation was especially threatening near Leningrad. The city was literally awash with subversives. On 18 September 1941, a resolution stepping up the struggle against the penetration of enemy elements into Leningrad was passed on the initiative of the commander of the front, G.K. Zhukov. Three screening lines were to be established on the approaches to the city. It also called for daily roundups in the city and patrolling of its main roads and the vicinities of important facilities.

The protection of the rear areas proved rather difficult, however, until the first part of 1942, because of the poor cooperation of NKVD organs with the combined-arms commanders and because they did not know the general operational situation. For example, in July 1941, the commander of the forces that guarded the rear services of the Southern Front, Maj. Gen. Nikolskiy, withdrew, without permission, his units that guarded two armies moving them to a different area where a critical situation arose, only to further worsen the situation. The Northeastern Front staff reported in August 1941 that combating subversive element was unsatisfactory. It noted that NKVD units of every department were bungling their missions and not cooperating with combined-arms units to yield no expected results.

The Northern Front also voiced its concern over the situation to the General Staff: "The number of subversions is rising, the border troops and NKVD troops are operating in an uncoordinated manner." It suggested that the border guards and internal troops should create unified combined-arms units--rifle divisions of the NKVD.

Based on its experience of combating subversions in the initial period of the war, the NKVD leadership drew appropriate conclusions. In April 1942, a Statute on the Protection of the Army in the Field was communicated to the troops. Radical measures were taken by the Supreme High Command Headquarters when, in May 1942, it approved the organization and structure of troops for the protection of rear areas of the fronts (Fig. 1). Thus, as late as one year after the start of the war, an attempt was made to build a centralized system for the protection of the rear areas of the army in the field. By that time, NKVD troops and commanders of combined-arms units had gained some experience of combating subversions. For example, the commander of the Southwestern Front and his deputy for the protection of the front's rear services managed to create, in the summer of 1942 when our troops were in retreat, a rather effective system to counter enemy subversion and reconnaissance teams. It consisted of a system of screening detachments of the border troops posted at the most important road junctions, as well as mobile and fixed posts, screens, checkpoints in built-up areas and at crossing facilities. But on the whole, the struggle against German agents in the early period of the war had an unorganized and passive-defense nature for which reason it was not effective enough.

German sabotage and terrorist operations grew in intensity in the later periods of the war. At transport facilities alone in 1942, they apprehended 256 parachutist-agents and eliminated 266 sabotage and terrorist groups. (6) In 1943, the number of saboteurs sent across the lines of our troops was half as many again as in 1942 and their number doubled in 1944-1945. There was a simultaneous growth in the number of armed gangs operating behind Red Army lines. More than 250 armed gangs were operating on the territory of Checheno-Ingushetia alone. Their task was to "fully disorganize the rear services, destroy the remnants of the Soviet war machine in the Caucasus, hasten the demise of Bolshevism and operate in the name of Russia's defeat in the war with Germany,... use all the means for a massive use of terrorist acts."

As the Soviet troops were advancing toward Western Ukraine, Western Byelorussia and the Baltic nations, the Germans began to widely recruit local nationalist organizations, traitors and deserters, who were in the hiding, and remnants of the defeated German units for sabotage and terrorist operations. German emissaries sent across the frontline were trying to establish both in the country's interior and on the liberated territories a constantly operating sabotage and terrorism front. In December 1944, the 202nd Sabotage Team asked the Wehrmacht supreme command for supplying the so-called Ukrainian Insurgent Army with equipment for 5,000 men and two kilos of explosive per each man. (7)

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Beginning in the summer of 1944, Germany proceeded to establish on its own territory big and very secret Werewolf and Hitler Corps organizations. In July 1944, Reichsfuhrer of the SS Himmler backed Otto Skorzeny's initiative on creating a special operations unit, the Waffen Jagtverband for especially important missions and asked Skorzeny to become its head. This unit included experienced experts contributed by the Brandenburg 800 Division. The Abwehr's five subversion schools trained 600-700 agents recruited from the SS, police battalions, SD and SA subunits. (8)

We should note that combating the enemy subversive operations behind the lines of the army in the field, the bandit insurgent movement in the country's interior required of the Soviet Supreme High Command no less effort and skills than did the command and control of troops at the fronts. Developed during the course of the war were the most appropriate for the moment forms of holding special operations. Among them were:

* a chekist-army operation of a local nature to apprehend and destroy separate teams (detachments) of subversives in built-up areas, mountains and forests;

* an army-scale chekist-army operation to mop up areas behind the front line at the time of offensive (defensive) actions;

* a front-scale chekist-army operation extending a considerable territory;

* reconnaissance-combat actions to isolate bandit units;

* raid and blocking actions to find and encircle defeated German units.

Chekist-army operations to combat saboteurs, insurgents and bandit units were first held in 1942 in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR. The leading role in them was played by NKVD troops with committing to action combined-arms units in a number of cases. Such operations were at first organized and held using small forces and fires with the objective to locate and destroy separate detachments, gangs and subversives. Later (1943-1945), they were held on the army and front scale when the Soviet forces entered Western Ukraine, Western Byelorussia, the Baltic nations, Poland and, finally, Germany.

We will cite as an example the chekist-army operation for procheska, or mopping-up (the term was used in official documents during the war) the rear area of the 3rd Guards Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front. This operation took two weeks to prepare. Its plan was developed by the front's staff together with the staff of the directorate of troops for the protection of rear services and it was approved by the commander of the front. The mopping-up missions were assigned to the troops by the order of the commander of the front, No. 0108 of 21 April 1944. Under this order, the operation was to run for five days, 1-5 May, 1944. Drafted for the mopping-up were units in the reserves: the 2nd Border Regiment, 196th Army Replacement Reserve Regiment, NKVD screen detachments, the operational personnel of Smersh counterintelligence detachments, and personnel of the military procuracy.

The mopping-up in this operation followed a simplified pattern--from one direction (Fig. 2). This method was used most frequently during the war because it required comparatively small forces and fires and could be organized over a shorter time. Each unit was assigned an area of responsibility and direction of operation. Battalions (companies) were deployed for mopping up into a line with intervals between the soldiers on open terrain of 40-50 meters and 20-30 meters on terrain offering concealment to be able to maintain visual contact. The disadvantage of this mopping-up method was that there often happened direct clashes with the units of subversives. Besides, it was far from always possible to create an uninterrupted front of mopping-up, especially on terrains that offered concealment, and this gave the enemy chances to evade attacks.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

A chekist-army operation to mop up the rear zone of the offensive (defensive) sector of a front was more complex. It usually called for a considerable amount of forces and fires and was held for an extended time. For example, in the offensive sector of the 1st Byelorussian Front, it was held from May 25 to June 16, 1944. The depth of the operation was 300 km and the width of the mopping-up zone was up to 100 km. Taking part on the operation were five NKVD regiments, seven regiments of NKVD internal troops, four cavalry regiments and two rifle battalions. The total number of troops was about 50,000. The plan of the operation was approved by Commander of the Front K.K. Rokossovsky.

The concept of the operation was to simultaneously envelope the entire rear area of the front and deny the German agents, sabotage and reconnaissance teams (SRT) to move to another portions of terrain. With this purpose in mind, the area of upcoming operations was divided up into eight sectors. Each of which was assigned to a certain military unit. Each sector for its part was divided up into sections in accordance with the number of the participating subunits.

The tactics of the troops was as follows. The force disposition of every NKVD regiment consisted of mopping-up teams. Mobile and fixed security elements. Teams protecting and defending important installations, subunits of the patrol and traffic control and regulation services and the reserve. The teams for mopping-up operations in the regiment included around 80 percent of its personnel. They set up reconnaissance and hunter groups (RHGr) for mopping up tracts of forest and built-up areas.

The mopping-up was carried out from two opposite directions (Fig. 3). This method facilitated a more thorough and quick inspection of the terrain and detection of subversives. Whereas in mopping up from one direction it was necessary to deploy screen forces from three sides, mopping up from two opposite sides made it possible to employ in active operation a bigger number of subunits. But the organization of mopping-up operations from two opposite sides proved a much more difficult thing to do than mopping-up operations from one side. The most important thing there was to achieve close cooperation of the sides' subunits and prevent clashes between them.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]

Other operations used a mopping-up from three directions toward the deployed screen force (Fig. 4). This method was used in hunting for subversives on terrains that offered concealment and in built-up areas. But in this case there should be a considerably greater amount of forces and fires involved.

The special operations held on German territory sometimes used a concentric mopping-up (Fig. 5). It ensured reliable sealing off of the detected enemy subversive detachment and made it possible to carefully inspect all the suspicious houses, utility structures, ravines, stands of trees and scrubs.

In addition to the chekist-army operation to mop up the rear area of a front (army), the Supreme High Command Headquarters took some other measures to prevent enemy subversion and terrorist activities. In accordance with the Headquarters directive No. 220315 of 9 May 1944, the commander of the troops that protected the rear services of the 2nd Byelorussian Front was ordered to "create a zone adjacent to the front of 25 km in depth to be made off limits to civilians. By 20 May 1944, to move all civilians out of the 25-km zone, which is to be the frontline henceforth ... In view of the fact that agents of the enemy are trying to infiltrate the territory of the rear area of the front wearing our military uniforms, the NKVD troops guarding the rear services of the army in the field should keep off the 25-km zone servicemen without tour of duty assignment papers and presenting military identity cards ... establish strict checking procedures on all the roads leading to the combat area, and to periodically inspect all built-up centers in the rear area of the front for the purpose of detecting enemy subversives and eliminating them, to intensify the protection of headquarters and command posts, rear services facilities and airfields ..." (9)

[FIGURE 5 OMITTED]

We can judge about the chekist-army operations held on German territory from the experience of the Vistula-Oder Operation of the 1st Byelorussian Front. The width of the combat zone was 230 km. A new development there was that the troops protecting the rear services were disposed in depth. Deployed along the first line directly in the rear area of the armies of the first operational echelon were five NKVD regiments and a special-purpose Polish brigade. Employed in the second echelon was the 64th Special NKVD Rifle Division (five regiments). It protected the units and facilities of the front's rear services. Besides, four NKVD internal troops regiments were dispersed to protect the front's supply and communications lines to a depth of up to 150 km. All in all, 14 NKVD regiments were guarding the rear services in the combat zone. By that time, the border with Poland was restored and it was protected by two border detachments.

The NKVD troops' missions consisted of combat, intelligence and investigative activities. Every regiment was assigned strips of an area measuring 50-60 km in length and up to 15-25 km in depth. A battalion was assigned a strip of 15-20 km in length and up to 10-15 km in depth, a company (border crossing guard post (SBCG)) was assigned an area of 2.5-6 km in length and up to 10 km in depth. The basic subunit with assigned protection duties was the company which contributed personnel for reconnaissance and hunting parties, observation posts, concealed surveillance posts, patrols and security patrols, ambushes and an escort detail.

The traffic control and regulating service had to play an important part in the system of chekist-army operations. It deployed in built-up centers, road junctions, crossing facilities and mountain passes checkpoints mobile and fixed guardposts. Operations chekist teams and patrols did an effective job. They not only apprehended suspicious individuals but also conducted military intelligence operations. They took great pains to accompany and protect truck convoys carrying personnel and supplies. For more reliable protection, the entire route in a dangerous zone was divided up into sections. A battalion was assigned to protect a stretch of 20-30 km. For safe escorting of rear service convoys across dangerous zones, NKVD units contributed teams for the protection and defense of utilities along the route, security and escort elements and a reserve force.

The chekist-army operations to combat Bandera's forces in Western Ukraine and the "Forest Brothers" in the Baltic nations. The big number of small built-up centers (homesteads) and the vast tracts of forestland hampered the detection of bandit forces' bases. Built in the forests were bunkers with efficient protection and defense systems. In addition to the above methods of combating illegal military units, they used under such conditions the sector-by-sector mopping-up (Fig. 6). It essentially consisted in dividing up the area to be combed into sectors (sektory), which were further divided up into sections (uchastki) and sections were divided into areas (rayons). The mopping-up was sequential or simultaneous. The element of surprise and speed of such operation were achieved through raids by reconnaissance and hunt teams, setting up ambushes and building obstacles.

The table below offers an idea of the scope of chekist-army operations during the Great Patriotic War and in the postwar period.

What lessons ought to be learned from the experience of combating subversions and terrorism in Great Patriotic War operations?

One. The enemy's sabotage and terrorist activities in the war years gained not only a tactical but also a strategic scope to become an inalienable part of warfare. The prevention of subversive activities required the pressing into service of not only NKVD special services and troops but also combined-arms units whose personnel was not always trained for this mission. Considering this fact, there is a need in contemporary conditions to train in advance the personnel of all arms and services and special troops in anti-sabotage and anti-terrorism action in combat environments.

Two. One of the major strategic mistakes made by the Red Army military-political leadership in the prewar years was that it underestimated the enemy's capability to carry out subversive operations. The mistakes had to be corrected during the course of heavy fighting. To prevent this in the future, it is necessary, as early as in peacetime, to train appropriate control agencies, draft the necessary guideline documents--regulations, manuals and instructions, to instruct the commanders and troops in the tactics of combating subversions.

[FIGURE 6 OMITTED]

NOTES:

1. L.I. Sandalov, Trudnyye rubezhi, Nauka Publishers, Moscow, 1956, p. 17.

2. Kak nachinalas voyna. Boytsy vspominayut minuvshiye dni, Kiev, 1954, p. 16.

3. G.K. Zhukov, Kak eto bylo. Nauka pobezhdat, Voenizdat Publishers, Moscow, 1955, p. 28.

4. Voennaia mysl', No. 3, 2005, p. 78.

5. Territorialnaya oborona, Upravleniye MVD RF, Moscow, 2002, p. 15.

6. Voennaia mysl', No. 3, 2005, p. 79.

7. Ibidem.

8. Ibidem.

9. Operatsiya "Bagration," Minsk, 1965, p. 107.

Maj. Gen. I.N. VOROBYOV (Ret.)

Doctor of Military Sciences

Col. V.A. KISELEV

Doctor of Military Sciences

Scale of Operations to Eliminate Sabotage and Reconnaissance Teams and
Criminal-subversive Element in the Years of the Great Patriotic War and
in the Postwar Period

Operation                          Dates         Forces involved

Operation to mop up rear areas     21.04-28.04   11 batts, caval reg,
  of 1st Ukrainian Front             1944          a militia det
Operation to mop up western        25.05-10.06   4 border regs, 2 divs,
  oblasts of BSSR and USSR           1944          a brig and a caval
                                                   intern. troops reg, 4
                                                   caval regs and 2
                                                   rifle batts of a
                                                   caval army
Elimination of gangs in Stanislav  01.04-05.05   8 tanks; 20 planes;
  Oblast                             1945          8,259 men
Elimination of gangs in Lyud-      24.01-05.02   950 men
  vipolsk rayon of Rovno Oblast      1945
Elimination of a gang of           10.01-15.01   600 men
  Kristaponis in Ukmerge district    1945
  of Lithuanian SSR
Elimination of five gangs          January 1945  4 batts
  in Grodno Oblast
Elimination of bandit forces in    10.01-24.01   1,335 men
  seven rayons of Stanislav          1951
  Oblast
Elimination of ten gangs in five   January 1951  560 men
  rayons of Stanislav Oblast

                                   Size of
                                   operation         Duration,
Operation                          area, [km.sup.2]  days

Operation to mop up rear areas      4,500             7
  of 1st Ukrainian Front
Operation to mop up western        30,000            17
  oblasts of BSSR and USSR
Elimination of gangs in Stanislav  10,200            35
  Oblast
Elimination of gangs in Lyud-         960            12
  vipolsk rayon of Rovno Oblast
Elimination of a gang of              240             5
  Kristaponis in Ukmerge district
  of Lithuanian SSR
Elimination of five gangs           1,664            14
  in Grodno Oblast
Elimination of bandit forces in     1,820            15
  seven rayons of Stanislav
  Oblast
Elimination of ten gangs in five    4,440            12
  rayons of Stanislav Oblast